It appears for some strange reason that the App Store ratings seem to be missing as of this morning. On the featured page all of the ratings are gone and show each app has no ratings. Once you click on the app the rating seems to be back but for some reason on the main page the rating is no where to be found.

Also when I was trying to update a few apps this morning the download began to hang taking much longer than usual. I also had two Game Center requests which took ages to accept and register on the server. Maybe something strange is going on with Apple servers this morning and hopefully these strange issues go away quickly.

What do you think is causing these anomalies?

[ Thanks to TiPb reader Edwin for sending this in! ]

In the iPhone 4 beta, when you delete an app you are not asked to rate that app as you are in iPhone 3.0. Whether this functionality has been removed from the iPhone OS going forward, however, or is merely removed from the beta so people don’t rate apps based on beta behavior is unknown.

Many developers have long had issue with the “rate on delete” function introduced in iPhone 2.2. Making it easiest to rate an app when you were removing it was thought to unfairly favor lower reviews.

We’ll have to wait until this summer’s official iPhone OS 4 release to see if it stays gone. In the meantime, let us know what you think. Did you use rate on delete? Did it make it easier to rate lower quality apps? Did you go to the App Store to also rate your preferred apps? And do you want to see rate on delete removed or do you hope it’s back in the final release?

[MacRumors]

More new finds in iPhone 3.0 Beta 5: it seems like those Restriction Settings — allowing parental control over apps based on ratings — we heard rumored in the wake of Reznor-gate have been surfaced in the latest beta.

Options include:

• Don’t Allow Apps
• 4+
• 9+
• 12+
• 17+
• Allow All Apps

It’s still unknown, however, whether Apple will take it upon themselves to determine ratings, leave it up to developers, or use a hybrid model where devs pick a rating and Apple approves or returns it for re-rating.

Regardless, we hope — when it’s finally released to the public this summer — it puts an end to the sillier rejections we’ve seen.